Countywide EMS study to be considered for 2024
Edgar, Athens and Stratford fire chiefs deny need for service
Discussion about a possible countywide ambulance service was revived last week after Marathon County supervisors raised the idea of seeking a feasibility study as soon as next year.
Matt Bootz, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said last week Tuesday that he plans on reaching out to the Eastern/Western Marathon County Towns Association before any action is taken, but it’s possible that money could be set aside in the 2024 budget for a countywide EMS study.
A year ago, the committee voted to add the feasibility study to county administrator Lance Leonard’s work plan, but only as a low priority with no deadline. This came about after two representatives of South Area Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) asked the committee to look into a countywide model as a way of addressing EMT shortages and slow response times among rural services.
At that time, the SAFER representatives said officials from around a dozen municipalities had been discussing the idea since the summer of 2021, and were “pretty enthusiastic” about the concept. However, the fire chiefs in Edgar, Athens and Stratford told The Record- Review that they did not see the need for studying a countywide EMS service.
Concerns about rural ambulance services have not gone away, however. Supervisor Jason Wilhelm, Athens, had the issue added to last week’s Public Safety agenda after hearing about the issue at a recent Western Towns Association meeting. However, he also noted that a countywide ambulance service was not exactly a popular idea among town officials.
Philip Rentmeester, the county’s emergency management director, told the committee that the root cause of the problem is recruitment and retention of EMTs, along with providing the training required for certification. He said he learned about these issues in 2016 when researching the issue of slow response times and “excessive” mutual aid calls from ambulance services.
“For whatever reason, new members were not to be found for the volunteer agencies,” he said.
Ambulance services have also had a hard time holding onto existing EMTs because of the heavy time obligations, resulting from more meeting requirements and an increase of ambulance calls for non-emergency reasons, Rentmeester said. Daytime responses are also an issue for volunteer EMTs who work outside their home area or whose bosses won’t always let them leave for calls, he said.
Rentmeester said his department has worked with students at UW-Madison on the recruitment and retention issue. One of their recommendations was to send surveys out to community members, asking them what they think about their local ambulance service, and to EMTs to find out what they think about working for their service. Another recommendation was to reach out to local high schools about establishing EMS classes.
Leonhard said a big part of the EMS challenge is funding, which relies heavily on reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid that don’t keep up with actual expenses. The advantage of a countywide system is that property taxes could be used to pay for the service, without impacting levy limits, he said.
“That’s why some counties have moved in that direction,” he said.
Leonhard said the countywide model could mean county-owned and county-staffed ambulances, or it could just mean that the county contracts with existing municipal ambulance services.
Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Millhausen said, in many parts of the county, a township is contractually covered by an ambulance service that isn’t the nearest one. The town of Guenther, for example, contracts with SAFER in Rib Mountain, even though Mosinee’s EMT service is closer. Edgar’s EMS also travels a long distance to the edge of its service area, he said.
“I don’t have the answer for that, other than strategically placing ambulance services throughout the county, but you’re still going to have your gaps,” he said.
Supervisor Al Opall, a member of the SAFER board of directors, said he’s heard from a lot of outlying townships who are “held hostage” to high-price, poorservice EMS contracts.
“I want to see something to serve these outlying areas more efficiently than what they’re getting now,” he said.
If the committee wants administration to move forward with a feasibility study, Leonard said it should make a recommendation soon so it can be included in the 2024 budget process.
Bootz said the county should first reach out to town officials to make it clear that the county is not necessarily pushing for a takeover of their ambulance services, but it is looking for the best way to deliver EMS. He said a lot of municipalities are “very passionate” about their local fire and EMT departments, and don’t want to give them up.
“I think you have to have an educational element before you move forward,” he said. “I think that’s a big deal for the townships.”
At the committee’s previous meeting on February 7, Supervisor Wilhelm underscored the seriousness of the issue in some rural communities.
“I live in a rural area. If people end up dying because we’re not getting emergency services to them, that would be a big issue,” he said. “It’s just something to look at.”
